Oh, so sad... But you did it so well... :'(

I really, really liked this. I do feel that Kingsley gets a little over-looked sometimes, and the issue of people who were recruited but didn't want to join the Order almost never comes up. I also love that Sirius is such a big reason for Kingsley's decision to stay - I think he probably would have felt quite a bit of personal guilt, and I love how you portrayed that. :)

Hi :)

OK, first off, I really like your characterisation of both Ron and Hermione, but particularly Ron: I think you've got him spot-on here, he's a very restless and impulsive sort of person, and you show that very well. The way you convey grief, as well, is excellent: from the way Hermione simply recounts what will happen, without giving any significance to any of these events, with very little emotion, shows how numb she feels at Ron's death. It's almost like she's empty or incomplete, which
is a very accurate portrayal of how people feel when they've lost a loved one.

I also thought the proposal was utterly adorable, and I think that people do tend to cling to stability at difficult times in their lives, so even though it was rushed, it felt like a perfectly natural way for them both to react. I’m rather hoping that this idea of how people react in the face of losing a loved one (either by emotionally shutting off as Hermione has done, or grabbing onto the good things left over in life as Ron did) will become a recurring theme in the fic, because it’s a very interesting thing to read about and consider. :)

You do have a couple of typos in this chapter:
- "Stopping acting as though you don’t feel anything because your eyes are lying." - should be "Stop", not "Stopping"
- In the penultimate paragraph, you slip into third person for one sentence; very easy to do by accident, and very easy to fix!

The only thing I would comment on is that the way you divided up the sections of the chapter with asterixes and a sub-heading: I feel like you could have incorporated a transition into the narrative somehow, which would have made it more seamless. It could even have been a part of her grief, to have her suddenly have memories of Ron in the forefront of her thoughts all the time. But it is quite stylistic, and clearly doing it this way works for you, so it isn’t a huge problem.

Overall, a really nice opening chapter, and I'm really looking forward to seeing where you take it. :)

Hiya.

I really, really like how you’ve interpreted Petunia here: she gets a lot of flak from the fandom (not completely undeserved, of course…), so to try and paint her in a sympathetic light was always going to be a challenge. However, it’s one I think you’ve risen to, and achieved it as much as you ever going to (I really strongly dislike Petunia, so for to get me to feel empathy for her is a real achievement!).

Her relationship with Lily is of particular interest to me: I think the jealousy is a key part of it. Jealousy is such an insidious emotion; once you experience a little of it towards someone, it grows until everything they do becomes a slight to you. You sort of expand on this theme of jealousy as pervasive and consuming throughout the fic (first it’s that Lily has more friends, then it’s that she’s “special” and the subsequent way she gets more attention from their parents, she’s first to bring home a serious boyfriend, etc), but when it has the biggest impact is when Petunia is even jealous of Lily’s death, because it’s another “first”. It’s so tragic, but at the same time accurate: I’ve known people to experience grief this way, it’s as if the fact that they’ve died is “selfish” (more common, of course, with suicides), but that same sort of resentment of the dead person is not uncommon, and I think you’ve presented that really well here.

I think my only slight criticism is of how the girls are when they were younger: I don’t think the jealousy really existed before Lily discovered her powers, because if there was, I don’t think Petunia would have felt so bitter, as the two wouldn’t have been so close anyway. In any case, I don’t think that excuses her adult behaviour (although you’ve handled that very well in this fic – I don’t think you’re trying to excuse so much as explain). However, that’s just my interpretation of her, and I completely respect that yours is different.

I think my favourite thing about this, however, is how you’ve presented her relationship towards Dudley: I wasn’t expecting Petunia to acknowledge that he isn’t as exceptional as her canon treatment of him implies, but how you’ve justified that (ie, she doesn’t want him to feel as inferior as she did as a child) is very clever: I think most people, when they become parents resolve to “do a better job” than their parents did, and many ultimately go about this in such extreme ways that it does quite as much damage of a different sort than what they were trying to avoid, and Petunia embodies this in your fic.

It’s terribly sad that Petunia never really finds closure with regard to her sister: although she goes to the grave, she behaves in such a stiff and formal way that it seems like she seems cold towards her. Perhaps that’s not what you intended, but that’s how I’ve read it: it’s like she’s trying to come to terms with it, but doesn’t know how to reach out to Lily, and that’s tragic. (I must say, Petunia visiting Lily’s grave isn’t something I ever considered – does she ever meet Harry there?!)

Well done with this, it’s a really well-executed character study.

Author's Response: Thank you very much for your review! I'm glad I've changed your view of Petunia as she's a character who I really understand. I'm glad you like it.

This was a really great read! The concept is hilarious, and I think the characterisation is spot-on :) However, I think my favourite part of the story is the style, the way we're not seeing the trial directly - I feel it would have descended into the ridiculous if you'd described every little detail, but the way you've just given the reader snippets makes it all the more interesting! Overall, great fic! PS - Ginny's right; what reputation? ;)

Author's Response: Thanks for the review.
I’m glad you liked the characterisations. Trying to write this like a Judge summing up a trial did, as you say, make it a lot shorter (and I hope funnier) than it might have been otherwise. I hope that Mr Justice Woolley’s opinions (and his feelings towards “the fragrant Mrs Malfoy”) survived intact.
-N-
It is safe to assume that Ginny is always right, that way you avoid arguments. ;-D

Hiya, I haven't finished yet, but I thought I would point this out...

”The girls looked at each other and giggled nervously. Luna waited patiently for them to tell her what was so funny. She loved laughing, she was always much happier when she was (I personally wouldn’t italicize the word “was”) laughing than when she wasn't. But it didn't work simply to laugh to try to be happier. She had tried it. Laughing without something to laugh about wasn't quite the same."

I think you've forgotten to delete some Beta-reader advice in that paragraph... ;) Loving it so far though, will leave a proper review when I've finished :)

Author's Response: Ahh thanks so much, just fixed it :) I really should look it over more slowly before I submit it. . .

Oh... Well isn't this heart-breaking? Particularly Remus, his words to Kingsley are very poignant :'(

I think your characterisation is brilliant - all very believeable. I particularly like Fred and George, falling back on laughter in the face of anything, and Mcgonagall's stoicism - I feel this is quite accurate to how they would have behaved.

"The words fall from his mouth, crawling into the night." - this is possibly my favourite line from the whole thing; the words "crawling" really conveys the desperation of the whole situation.

What I would have liked to have seen is a bit more of Kingsley - he sort of just reacts to Remus, and it would have been interesting to hear his personal feelings about the upcoming battle.

But overall, this is lovely, really well-written. Good job! :)

I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to review this: I’ve only just found it, actually, and completely by chance… how embarrassing! Also, I really don’t care that you didn’t get all of my prompts, because they were so scattered that no single fic could have incorporated all of them – thank you so much for what you have done, it’s fabulous!

I think your characterisation here was spot on, especially the dialogue: you captured the distinctive voices of Remus and Tonks perfectly. I also love how equally stubborn they are: that’s something that some writers seem to forget with these two. Even when Remus tries for a resolution at the end, it becomes another battle of wills (when she refuses to let him in, and he says he’s staying there all night then), possibly out of sheer habit? In any case, I do love their dynamic: again, I’ve read fics where it’s just one of them pressuring the other until they snap, but there’s pushing and pulling on both sides here, which I suspect to be far more accurate.

When I started reading this, I was wondering how you were going to relate it back to Christmas: I think their “drunken one night stand” was actually quite a good inclusion. It sort of validates her upset, because it seems to her like false hope in hindsight, and it just made him feel even more conflicted: I like these sorts of developments, ones that could fit into canon, and pull strands of canon together. I think there must have been some involvement between them prior to Tonks’ hospital wing outburst, and to make it something fleeting and “undefined” (ie, not quite a relationship, but clearly something) makes both of their feelings more understandable, and is, I think, important to their development to include.

The only thing I could possibly pull you up on is that Remus’ decision making (beginning “If he truly loved her...” and ending when he goes to her flat) feels a tiny bit rushed to me: however, I suppose that to capture it properly, you’d need to write an actual fic and go into a lot more detail, so considering the length of the piece overall, it’s about the right length, really.

Thank you again for my lovely Christmas present: it’s just what I wanted, and I will be favouriting!

Author's Response: Hi Alex! Firstly, don't feel bad about not reviewing sooner. The fact that you reviewed, regardless of when, means a lot, so thank you :)

I'm so glad you didn't hate this story. It features what I think is your OTP, and it's one of my all time favourite canon pairings, so I'm so glad you liked the characterisation of them both. And I like writing dialogue more than narrative, so I'm pleased you liked that too, especially their dynamic.

And I'm happy you didn't think their one-night stand was random or something, lol. That was definitely something I was worrying about. I agree -- I'm sure there was *something* between them to explain what happened in the hospital wing.

I totally agree with you regarding the rushed-ness of it. This was written in a rush, and I would really love to expand on it sometime. I hope to do so, because I don't think I did the pairing justice with the word limit. But thank you for understanding that there was indeed a word limit, and that kind of restricted how much of their story I could tell.

Thank you for such a wonderful review, Alex. Much appreciated.

~Soraya~

Hi. I’ve really, really enjoyed this, particularly the style of it, which I suppose is going to be the main topic of this review because it’s just so different to the typical songfic: I like how you’ve taken the concept of the song and reflected it in the prose (in terms of both style, tone and central emotions), rather than just using lyrics to frame scenes of appropriately similar emotion/theme as most songfics do.

You emulate the style of newspaper pieces very well, with a nice balance of detachedness and more emotive sections: I found myself being reminded of articles I’ve read in The Guardian, although I doubt you get that in the States…? Well, The Guardian is a fairly liberal paper, and I think the reason I was reminded of it in particular is that the Prophet in your fic is taking a considerably more liberal line than it has been previously (eg, describing the people who fell as “brave”, not “undesirables”, etc…), presumably as a reaction to the censorship it experienced through the series, and perhaps to try and deemphasise its role in the War: I’m not sure if that’s exactly what you were going for, but that’s what I took from it. In any case, you’ve got the “journalist voice” pinned down. I also like that the paper is also using Riddle’s name now: I’m not sure if this is symptomatic of the paper’s new image (as I tried to describe above), or if it’s reflective of the new attitudes of the Wizarding World, but it’s clearly presenting a world that is trying to move on. Although, it’s made more interesting when you then juxtapose the articles with the letters, showing someone who clearly isn’t moving on.

By contrast, the rawness of Dennis’ letters is simply heart-breaking! “Somehow, I thought my biggest problems going into fourth year would be whether Ellie Branstone even knows I exist. Now, though, it’s more a matter of making it through the whole school year without losing my mind and then going home for the summer and trying to cope with being there. Sometimes, I kind of wish I had died instead. It’s just too much for my head to hold these days.” – that section put a tiny little lump in my throat, it’s just so desperate… Then of course, there’s the resignation, the feeling that he’s not important, which is so symptomatic of depression, as you show in this line: “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this, since you’re probably not going to read it anyway.” Reading this just makes you ache for the poor kid.

In short, I really like the originality of this: it shows what you can do with a theme that’s reasonably common in fanfic (ie, the aftermath of the Second War) just by tackling it a slightly unconventional way. There’s no setting or character description, because it just isn’t needed here: I don’t think I have anything really to offer in the way of criticism, though, because you convey everything you need to in a very stark and bleak way, and I think additional details would be superfluous at best, and would interfere the darkening mood at worst.

Author's Response:

I remember when the song Stan first came out; it was one of my first introductions to the idea of obsession. Though I knew what 'obsession' meant, it put a new spin on what that word meant to me, and I always knew I wanted to write about it.

Flash forward eleven years to me desperately brainstorming for something Soraya could appreciate. Somehow, this ebil baby came out of my head. I have this thing about killing off innocents. I kill more undeserving folks in my stories than ones the world wouldn't miss. But for this case, I wanted Dennis to be a good kid in a bad situation. In our streets every day, kids take to crime because they have nothing else. While Dennis isn't trying to one-up the world and prove himself to gangsters, he is a case of someone doing what he has to do to live. And, as is the case with so many youths whose families are shredded by violence, that violence never really left him alone and eventually killed him. I guess this is as close to social activism as I'll ever get, but I did do that a bit on purpose.

The Prophet in this story has had the chance to be its own entity without Ministry meddling. For so long, there has been an agenda on someone's part, but during this story, they are finally in the hands of someone who wants it to be a public service as much as an enterprise. This is why there are articles discussing signs of trauma and PTSD for those associated with the battle. In a way, the Muggle article is far more detached.

Dennis was begging for help, even if he wasn't doing it intentionally. One of the foibles of being a teen is feeling like the world is bent on breaking your soul. Add a demented father and a dead sibling and seemingly no one around to care about how he's dealing with it... :/ Sadly, I don't think this case is unique, though the end result was probably extraordinary.

Just so you know, I did a ridiculous amount of research and harassing of my British friends to make this story as genuine as possible. I hope that, as you haven't pointed anything out as being odd or not ringing true, I've done a decent job. I do know a bit about The Guardian, though not enough to form an opinion on the journalistic quality (will need to ask Deathlex now, hehe). Now I'm interested. I do my best to incorporate British things into my writing and into my knowledge base to make my stories the best they can be.

Lastly, I'm glad you appreciate the way it was written. Somehow, just 'telling' this story wouldn't have been as impactful. Dennis thought the world wasn't listening and neither was Harry, but it was listening - just not at the right time or in the right forum. He did matter, and people really took notice of his death (in my head, at least). So many of those affected spent so much time immersed in their own problems that they never really thought of anyone else's. It's logical, really, to feel like your problems are the end-all of everything, when, in reality and in the scope of things, they are minute and not unique. To me, this is when the recovering wizard population took a look around and noticed that their brothers and sisters, magical and Muggle alike, needed to help each other in order to help themselves. It's just a shame that Dennis had to die to do that, but it is what it is.

Thank you for the lovely review, as well as sitting through this rambolic response (haha, I made up a word). You have made your SPEW Monarch smile this morning. :D

~Jess